by Claire Adams
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ace asked.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “The excuse I kept telling myself was that you said that you never wanted to have kids and a family. To be honest, that’s part of what drove me away when we were still in Kuwait, too. It just felt like having sex with you was a mistake, on a personal level as well as a professional level. It was never going to go anywhere, no matter how much I wanted it to. So why bother? I felt like I was selling myself short.”
“I had a reason for never wanting kids,” Ace said. He wasn’t looking at me, and I could tell that whatever he was about to tell me, he was deeply unhappy about it. He dug a fingernail into the wooden picnic table. “My childhood wasn’t exactly pleasant,” he said.
“Was your dad in the military as well?” I asked curiously. I knew both so much and so little about Ace. It felt as though we had known each other for ages now. But then I realized I knew very little about his life growing up. I knew the man he’d been in Kuwait, but it felt as though I barely knew the man sitting across the table from me right now.
It was part of what made him so exciting, so enticing. There was an element of mystery to him.
Ace cleared his throat. “My dad wasn’t in the military, no,” he said. He finally looked at me. “He was an abusive, drunken asshole.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. I wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him, but I could tell he wasn’t done yet. He had more that he needed to tell me.
“He wasn’t a bad guy when he was sober. But when he’d been drinking, he’d get mad at me over the stupidest things. He was just full of rage, I’m sure partly because his life just didn’t turn out the way that he wanted it to. He was washed up and nearly broke in West Virginia. No wife, but a young son who wasn’t interested in any of the stuff he was interested in.” He paused. “I got pretty good at avoiding him, but I wasn’t always successful. Especially since I could never predict what he was going to do next.”
“Wasn’t there someone you could tell?” I asked, my voice hushed.
Ace shrugged. “I’m sure there was, but I didn’t realize it at the time. Honestly, I don’t think I realized anything abnormal was going on for a long time. I thought everyone’s families were just like mine and it was just, you know, some Hollywood bullshit to pretend otherwise.”
I put my hand over my mouth, feeling like I could cry. It was a story I’d heard from a number of the military guys, or some variant on it, but I had never really connected Ace to those stories. I’d never pictured him having a rotten childhood. Of course, that was what had made him so driven to succeed, though.
“You’ve noticed the scar tissue, I bet,” Ace added. “All over my back. Underneath the tattoos. That’s why I have so many tattoos back there, because every time I took off my shirt during basic training, it felt like everyone was staring at me.”
“I didn’t realize what they were from,” I said. “That must be terrible, having to carry around the physical reminder all the time.”
Ace shrugged. “It’s not like they hurt or anything. I almost don’t even notice them. They’re not really in a place that I can see.”
“That’s fair,” I said, but I couldn’t help looking at him with sadness and pity, even though I knew he must get that a lot and hate it. Or maybe he didn’t get that a lot. Despite the casual, don’t-give-a-fuck way he said it to me, I doubted he had told this story to anyone else.
I felt lucky that he trusted me enough to tell me what had happened. And I wondered if I knew where he was going with this. I had, of course, never been abused, but I imagined that if I had been, I wouldn’t be too quick to have children. That had to be the kind of thing that left other, nonvisible marks.
Sure enough, Ace sighed. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I’m not the victim. Or I wasn’t always, I guess.” Again, he was looking me straight in the eye, unflinching. “I almost killed my dad. One night, he came at me for coming in late from school. I had been working on a school project; it wasn’t like I could help it. But he was pissed, and he wouldn’t listen to me. Called them dumb excuses. And he came after me. I just went at it with him. I’d just had my growth spurt, and I was taller than him now, and I don’t think he expected that. Plus, he was pretty drunk. My reflexes were faster. I got him pinned on the floor, and I just started hitting him and hitting him.
“Things had been going on for so long by that point. Years and years and years. And I was so angry. I just felt like if I could punch him enough times, maybe he would understand that. Maybe he would realize what the drinking was doing to us. To him. It’s such a stupid thing to say because it’s not like I ever knew what he was like when he wasn’t like that. But I guess I always tried to imagine that somewhere under all of that, he was still a good guy. Because otherwise, there was no way that I could ever be a good guy.”
He swallowed hard. “And I just decided that I never wanted to have kids. I didn’t want to be that man. And I didn’t particularly want to be any of the foster dads that I had either. They were nice enough, but they just seemed like they’d be happier if they didn’t have their wives and their children and all these things weighing them down.”
“Where’s your dad now? Do you know?” I couldn’t resist asking.
Ace shook his head. “I stopped myself from killing him once,” he said. “I think that was more fear than anything else. I was afraid of the consequences. And to be honest, I was afraid to kill a man. Even beating him up was a weird sensation. But after years in the military…” He trailed off and shook his head. “Things are different now,” he said. “I’m different now. But I wouldn’t trust myself around my father.”
I felt a chill run through me. Ace was the father of my daughter, yet here he was, talking so calmly about killing his father. I had a feeling he would do it if the opportunity arose. And I wanted to hate him for that. I wanted to be scared of him.
But I knew him too well. And I trusted him too much. If that was how he felt, I was sure there was a reason for it. I didn’t think that he was full of rage like he had accused his father of being. He just had very targeted anger toward a situation that hadn’t been fair at all.
“So you what, ran away from home, then?” I asked.
“Nah,” Ace said. “One of the neighbors heard us going at it and called the police. When they showed up, my dad was unconscious on the floor, and I was just sitting there on the couch, staring off into space, all covered in blood. They knew something was up. They moved me into the foster care system.” He flashed me the ghost of a smile. “One of my foster dads probably saved my life by pointing a very angry kid toward the military. It was my ticket out of West Virginia and away from my dad.”
Ace ran a hand back through his hair. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you’re part of the reason I came here when I got released from service. There was also this postcard one of my friends gave me of Cape Cod. And after so much time in the desert in Kuwait, I just really needed to see an ocean. But I knew that you were here. And I think subconsciously, I was just hoping that I’d run into you one day. I just didn’t know where else to go. I couldn’t go back to West Virginia, and I’d never really lived anywhere else except for the base that I shipped out from.”
I frowned, trying to sort out how I felt about this new information. But I supposed I already kind of knew that I was the reason he was there in Boston.
The tricky part was sorting out how I felt about the rest of it. Did I feel safe, having him around Ava? He seemed worried that he would relapse, that he would turn into that angry kid. That he would end up just like his dad.
But then again, I trusted Ace. And I could tell that he cared about both me and Ava. If he really thought that he was a harm to anyone, I didn’t think that he would put himself in that situation. He would be the first to leave before I even realized that there was something wrong.
“I shouldn’t have walked out on dinner the other night,” Ace said quietly. “I was just so angry, and
I hadn’t felt that in a long time. You can’t afford to get angry like that when you’re in the military. Otherwise, it’ll consume you. You’ll fuck things up. You’ll doom the mission. You’ll get yourself killed.” He paused. “I guess that’s been the most difficult thing about coming back. Recognizing that I have emotions again and recognizing that it’s okay to act on those emotions.” He grinned ruefully. “I guess I’ve always had that problem around you, though. I can’t seem to keep my emotions in check.”
“I have the same problem,” I admitted, even though I knew that he already knew that. Neither of us ever seemed fully capable of taking things slow, of keeping our hands off the other person. But was that what I wanted now?
“There’s another thing I have to tell you,” I sighed.
“Uh oh,” Ace said, looking wary.
“I left early. In Kuwait. I knew you guys were only going to be out for a short amount of time, but I was so worried about seeing you again. It felt like the biggest possible professional mistake. I know things would have been bad for you if they’d found you were fraternizing with me, but things would have been just as bad for me. I felt like I had failed myself.
“And on top of that, I was just so confused. I really liked you, Ace. But I knew that you were planning on never getting married, on never having a family. I knew you were planning on staying over there for the rest of your life if you could. And I just wasn’t sure how to handle that. I knew that I was going to be leaving. I had to; it wasn’t like I could just stay over there. And I started thinking about what I would do if you got hurt out there, if I had to write your obituary. I couldn’t do it. I had to leave.”
Ace stared at me for a long moment. “Your career was more important than our budding relationship,” he said slowly. But I could tell from his crooked smile that he was teasing.
I still sighed. “Honestly? Yeah, it was.”
“But having Ava has derailed everything, hasn’t it?” Ace asked.
I frowned. “Yes and no,” I said slowly. “I won’t lie, things haven’t been easy, and I definitely haven’t been getting the same caliber of pieces since then. But I’ve been working my way back up there. I might not ever get to be a foreign correspondent again, but I’m pretty happy with the work I’m doing in the community, all the same.”
“That’s good,” Ace said.
“What about you?” I asked. “Like I said, I thought your plan was to stay over there for as long as you could. Now you’re back here and making a career out of training dogs.”
Ace grimaced. “I did stay over there for as long as I could,” he said. “After a while, I guess it starts to get to you. You start to have a hard time sleeping, and then you start making stupid mistakes. And my reflexes just aren’t quite what they used to be.” He snorted. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m still quicker than your average Joe, but I wasn’t quick enough to do some of the stuff I used to do over there. After a certain point, I started feeling more like a liability than an asset when we would go out. So I decided it was time to call it quits.”
“And the dog thing?”
“I did some of that for the SEALs, too. It wasn’t totally out of the blue.” Ace paused. “I thought about working at one of the bases, training the new recruits. But I’ve never been that kind of a people person, you know? I’m much more comfortable working with dogs all day, every day. It’s more fun for me and takes less energy.”
“That’s fair,” I said, nodding.
It was good just to talk to Ace again. I could almost forget about the elephant in the room—Ava. What were we going to do about Ava? And how would that affect the relationship between Ace and me? Talking about our careers was one thing, but it wasn’t what we had come here to do.
I swallowed hard, trying to think of a way to broach the subject, knowing that it needed to be done.
36
Ace
Telling Harper about my father felt like a huge weight lifted off my chest. It felt awfully freeing to have all of this out in the open. Not only did it lessen my burden a little, but Harper didn’t judge me in the way that I might have expected her to. She didn’t just get up and leave when I admitted that I’d almost killed my father. She didn’t tell me that she didn’t want me anywhere near Ava. Instead, she just seemed to accept it.
I was actually surprised at how easy it was to tell her about it. It was partly that same thing: that she just accepted it. And I trusted her to accept it and not judge me. But there was more to it as well. I had always felt comfortable around Harper from the very beginning. I knew that she had heard some gnarly stories from the other guys that she had interviewed, and it seemed like nothing could faze her. She just listened through all of it.
Something had shifted between us, too. It was just like Nancy had said: telling Harper about my childhood seemed to have fostered trust between us. Things felt instantly more comfortable. On top of that, Harper admitted to a couple things of her own, like having left Kuwait early to avoid me.
I’d sort of known that that’s what had happened, but it still felt like a kick in the gut to have her confirm it. Again, I couldn’t help thinking about how things might have been different. What if I had just stopped back at her place that night to say goodbye? Would things have ended up differently?
But then, I realized that I didn’t really matter. Things had worked out the way they had, and I was pretty happy at the moment, all things considered. I might have missed the first three years of my daughter’s life, and things between Harper and I might still be a little strained and uncertain, but overall, I had to admit that I couldn’t have planned things better.
Nor would I have been the same kind of dad three years ago if Harper had told me when she first got pregnant. Oh, I would have taken care of her and the baby. That wasn’t even a question. But back then, I’d expected that the military was going to be my lifelong career. I would have felt like Harper and Ava were dragging me away from it. And maybe I would have become a man that I hated.
Things had worked out for the better. I had to keep telling myself that.
I started pulling things out of the picnic basket. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I brought a little of everything. All homemade,” I told Harper. “There’s brisket, buns, macaroni salad, regular salad, pickles, and some other sides.”
“Homemade? Really?” Harper asked in surprise.
I laughed. “Believe it or not, I can cook something other than MREs,” I told her. I shrugged. “I grew up doing most of the cooking in our household because my dad usually wasn’t in any shape to be anywhere near a stove. I got pretty good at it after a while.”
“Did I mention how I think you’ll make the perfect dad?” Harper asked. Then she grimaced, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, that was a really awkward way to bring up the whole Ava thing.”
I shook my head. “That’s fine,” I insisted. I paused. “Look, I wasn’t expecting to be a dad. But I want to be part of Ava’s life. I’ve changed a lot from the man you knew in Kuwait. Honestly, I’ve changed a lot even since I’ve been here in Boston. I’ve grown up more. And I understand if you don’t want me to be alone with her, but I hope that I can still be part of her life.”
“Are you sure she’s yours?” Harper asked snidely. Again, she looked embarrassed to have said it. “I just mean, because you sent that DNA test.”
“I believe that she’s mine,” I said simply. “I believed you even back then. I just sent that because I was angry and because I was afraid that you weren’t going to let me see her, no matter what I wanted or what happened between you and I.” I paused. “I hoped that we could settle things like this, like adults, but if not, I really was prepared to bring you to court if I had to. She’s my daughter.”
“I know,” Harper sighed, and I could tell that she was relieved. She paused, taking a bite of the macaroni salad. “I do think that it’s best that we stop seeing each other romantically, though. There’s just too many complications. Too many problems th
at could come up. I don’t want to mess things up between you and Ava.”
“She’s my daughter; do you really think you could do that?” I asked. I meant it as a joke, but Harper didn’t look amused. I shook my head, reaching out to take her hands. “Harper, whatever happens between us, it’s not going to come between Ava and me. Or between you and Ava, for that matter. She’s too young to really understand, and as long as we act like mature adults and communicate about things, there’s no reason that it should have to be a problem.”
Harper pulled her hands away. “I just can’t take that risk,” she said stubbornly, shaking her head.
I stared at her for a long moment. “Okay,” I finally said. I didn’t agree with her, but I wanted her to be happy, and I wanted Ava in my life. I could tell that she didn’t want to fight about this, and I didn’t want her to decide that I was being too much trouble and that she didn’t want me around Ava at all anymore. So I nodded. “No more romantic entanglements between us. That’s fine.”
“Good,” Harper said.
“So can we set up some sort of schedule for when I can see Ava?” I asked. “I was thinking that maybe she and I could have park outings on the weekends when I have dogs to take out. If that’s okay with you. I know you were worried that she would start getting attached to the dogs, but I think if we explained to her that they weren’t her dogs and if I rotated through and brought different dogs each time, things would be okay, and she’d still get to play with some of the dogs.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Harper said. She laughed. “She hasn’t stopped talking about how much she wants a dog in weeks.”
“Sorry,” I said, grinning at her. “She must take after her dad.”
“Something like that,” Harper said ruefully. “I just really don’t think we can get one at the moment. They take so much work, and I’m not always around for the whole day where I could walk a dog or whatever.”